3 good and 1 bad reading of note from the flash PMI reports

(Updates to fix order of the U.S. and French charts, and fixes spelling of name.)

The so-called “flash” manufacturing purchasing managers indexes (that means, based on 85%-90% of respondents) were released on Monday, and the news was mostly good for the global economy.

First, to China, where the reading tilted above the 50 growth line for the first time since December.

In Japan, there was a bounceback after the introduction of an increase in the value-added tax. At 51.1, that was the fastest growth in three months.

In the United States, the flash PMI rose to 57.5, the best reading since May 2010. The internals were strong as both output and new orders topped 60.

One piece of bad news came from France, where the manufacturing PMI fell to 47.8, a “recessionary” reading, according to Claus Vistesen of Pantheon Macroeconomics. The internals weren’t healthy either, with production and new orders sliding while the backlog of work is growing.

“We are getting increasingly worried about how long the bond market can ignore the poor economic data amid a wide budget and current account deficit,” he said.